ANIDE – The Beauty of Being Lost
- Jonas
Arthur Rosset (who also signes ANIDE) is a multidisciplinary artist from Lyon, currently living andworking in Paris. In 2021, he founded “Le Théâtre de la Rêverie”, a multidisciplinary label aiming to explore themes that revolve around the imaginary. Inspired by nature, philosophy, music and semiotics, he explores the imagination by creating a dreamlike world, a reverie where we get lost in the meaning we want to give it.
You are creating this dreamy world in your art, a series of exhibitions you held was called “Theater of Reverie“. What does this mean to you and your art?
First of all, I need to say that a reverie is not a dream. Reverie is this being in-between worlds. When you daydream for example, you are with others because you are awake in the world, but, at the same time the act of dreaming is something very intimate. Or when you begin to feel asleep, you sometimes have those images. You are not sleeping yet, but you are not awake either.
I’m very fascinated and obsessed by this very thin line between dream and reality and my whole art is about exploring this state and creating a bridge between the two worlds.
Why is it so important for you?
Because I think this is the moment where you’re the most yourself, without any artifice, without any control. It’s a form of pure freedom that you have in this short moment.
Like déja vu, a sudden feeling that comes to you out of nowhere.
Exactly. But for me, in this quickness lies the whole essence. It is a crossing point of the world, of yourself, your visions and your memories. It’s a very powerful and fragile moment because everything is crossing and because everything is crossing, you’re a bit lost. You don’t know if you are with yourself or if you are in the world, but you simply “are“.
It’s such a fragile and at the same time powerful moment that the only thing you can do is to be aware and say thank you, but you cannot control it.
Do you have any techniques to explore this state for longer than just the fleeting moment it is?
Music definitely plays an important role. I cannot work without it. When I’m deep into my work I just listen to one or two songs a day on repeat. That puts me into this kind of hypnotic state where I can put my consciousness asleep.
Basically I built a whole lifestyle about this transition. I kind of lost myself in this glitch, trying to archive and document what’s happening in this little moment. Through music, repetition, small rituals I’m creating a bubble that allows me to stay in that area for my creation process. Also I need to be alone. It’s like when you are meditating, you need to be sure that nobody will enter during your session.
So music is so important in creating this feeling but still, you are making visual art. Was that a conscious decision or how come that you’re not more in the field of making music?
I would say the subject of my work in general is the question of what does a feeling look like? What color, shape, or composition does a feeling have?
I’m super grateful to have music in my life as it is a big part of the moments I’m exploring and trying to visualize. In a way you could say music is the clothing of moments, you know?
But in the end it’s a global approach. The picture is not about the music. It is about the whole atmosphere at this very moment. It links to the mood, the music, the light … etc. I think I’m like a kid, building a huge world out of something very tiny.
I like painting because it has this relationship with matter. It gives me the unique feeling of crafting something from scratch and I really love that.
Besides your own visual practice, you collect a lot of images and also post them on your Instagram. Could you talk about just this practice a little bit? What does it mean to you?
I’m obsessed with images. It actually was my entry into the art world, digging and collecting in general.
What are you looking for in an image?
I think what I look for in pictures it’s very different [than in my art] but I think what I’m looking for is to be disturbed. For me, a good image is a bridge and I’m curious of where it brings me.
It nourishes my art, myself and is my daily source of inspiration. There’s paintings, alternative advertising, sculptures, very old medieval stuff, new punky things and the more I gather, the more precise it becomes.
It is a way for me to build my own artistic direction, to understand what I like. When I’m looking for pictures, I’m looking for myself. I don’t know why, but I know these pictures are a part of me somehow.
Do you care at all about what is behind the picture or is it just about the visual impact?
Not really. I really love this thing of not wanting to know. You can feel that in my paintings also. For me, being lost can be one of the most beautiful feelings ever, because when you don’t know, there is this world of possibilities.
It makes you curious, it makes you alive, it makes you present in a way. And this is what I’m looking for with everything, images, people, exhibitions, etc. I’m trying to reach this moment where I feel I’m connected to these things, but I don’t know why and how.
That’s why I collect my archive, because if I don’t have to answer now, I know I will have it later.
Is there any feedback you’ve gotten from people having seen your art? Insights into where your art brings other people?
Definitely! For example when I had just started painting. I was still working in this tea shop and there was this guy coming in almost everyday, a very shy, very polite person.
At some point we got to talking and I left my phone with him to show him my work because I had to do my job in the meantime.
30 minutes later when I came back I just saw him looking at my paintings, crying. He told me how the paintings had brought back memories from his childhood. They were good memories but he was just overwhelmed how they came back at this moment through this work.
This was the moment when I realized that I paint for myself, but my paintings are for others.
They are there to create this destabilizing moment that only art can create in this way.
I remember when I started creating I told my best friends that I would be really happy the moment somebody cried at one of my exhibitions. Back then I didn’t understand why I thought so and I really worried that it was arrogant or pretentious but at that moment, I understood. When you cry you have this moment of vulnerability, when you really let go, when you really let this image in. When you allow yourself to really like, dive into it, feel all of it and reflect on yourself, what you experience, etc..
The third feedback came from this woman in France who had bought one of my paintings, a person not hugely involved in the art scene. A year later she came back to me and told me that every day she sees something new in my painting. She was like “it’s alive“.
I think about this a lot when I’m painting because it’s actually what I want to achieve, creating something organic and alive on just this dead piece of paper.
Generally, those three feedbacks really helped me figure out my path.
Are there people – past or present – that really inspire and touch you?
Oh, I’m obsessed with so many amazing people from fields like fashion, art, music, etc.
In fashion there’s for example Alexander McQueen. His work wasn’t only about fashion. It was about performance, art, theater. Of course in the end you could buy a dress but the whole drama around it was something else. I love artists that go beyond the medium.
Other fashion inspirations are for example Margiela, Yamamoto, Kawakubo.
In terms of painting there’s contemporary painters as well as older ones. I like architecture.
Generally I think we’re living in a world that is so rich, and being able to grab what you relate to and melting all those things together is one of the most beautiful things that you can do.
That’s such a nice thought. I have the feeling that today many people think there is not really anything new to create.
Honestly I’m convinced that we are living in this illusion that at some point artists invented stuff. I think people like Margiela, McQueen or Dali didn’t invent anything, they just mixed stuff in their own way.
For me that means two things. You need to know where to look and you need to find your own way of mixing.
But for that you need to dig, you need to do the work. We’re living in a world where everything is so accessible that people don’t make the effort of going deep anymore.
That’s where the feeling of there is nothing new comes from. We live in this abundance where everything is on the table but we are not grabbing it. We think we don’t need to know because it is so accessible. We think if we ever need it we can just take it then. The truth is you will never reach it. This digging is the way to make your own stuff and that’s why for me collecting images is so important. It’s about entertaining this curiosity and finding pieces of the puzzle because again, we don’t invent, we just transform.
